A bill to allow gay marriage in Washington DC has passed its first reading by 11-2 votes. It was introduced in October by David Catania, one of two out gay council members.

The bill is tipped to pass, as nine of the council's 13 members are listed as co-sponsors and mayor Adrian Fenty has clearly signalled he will sign it.It receives a second and final council vote later this month and will then go to Fenty for approval.

However, it must then be approved by Congress during a 30-day review. Observers have said it is likely the Democrat-controlled Congress will approve it, which could make gay marriage legal by late January.DC already recognises gay marriages performed in other states where the practice is legal, which are Vermont, Iowa, Connecticut and Massachusetts. New Hampshire will begin performing same-sex marriage early next year.

Recognising out-of-state marriages means that same-sex couples in the district who are married can now receive more than 200 rights, benefits, and obligations associated with marriage under DC law.

Following one of the most dramatic and emotional discourses thus far in the gay marriage debate, the New York Senate voted 24 to 38 today to reject a bill guaranteeing equal marriage rights to same-sex couples.

The bill, which Gov. David Paterson (D) was expected to sign right away, would have made New York - the third largest populated state in the country – the sixth state to provide equal marriage rights to gay couples.

Opponents of the measure with one exception sat silently throughout more than two hours of discourse about the bill, while 18 Democrats – many of them African Americans and Jewish people – stood to urge support for the bill.

The bill’s sponsor, openly gay Sen. Tom Duane, in closing the debate on the measure, sighed heavily and acknowledged the outcome of the vote was still uncertain. The bill needed 32 votes to pass and, while the Senate generally takes up bills only after the leadership knows it has the votes, the marriage bill was an exception. Because there were 32 Democrats (not all pro-gay) and 30 Republicans in the chamber, no one knew what the result would be.

The debate preceding the vote included numerous African-American senators emphasizing how similar arguments against gay marriage parallel arguments made decades ago against interracial marriage. It included many vigorous statements that the law would not affect religious freedoms.

And it included many tips of the proverbial hat to Duane and his partner Louis Webre.

“In my family and culture, especially as it relates to my religion, it has always been considered that, if you were living together and not officially married, you were considered living in sin,” said Sen. Velmanette Montgomery, an African American Democrat from Brooklyn. “So, for those of us who believe in that religious tenet, the reason why to support same-sex marriage is that we do not want them to live in sin.”

Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Nebraska,” read Senator Eric Adams, an African American Democrat from Brooklyn.

“All of these states at one time or another sold blacks into slavery and participated in legal slavery because a numerical majority” which supported slavery at the time. “But a numerical majority in one place does not mean they are in the right place. We must lead the country to the right place.”